The present invention relates to protective gloves, and more particularly to protective gloves designed for use by pathologists performing autopsies.
Due to the recent spread of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), pathologists have become reluctant to perform autopsies on bodies of people believed to have died from AIDS. While rubber gloves will in all likelihood prevent the spread of the disease from the dead body to the pathologist, such gloves have been known to rip when in contact with a scalpel or other sharp instrument in which case the sharp instrument frequently pierces the hand of the pathologist as well. As a result, any protective glove worn by pathologists must be strong enough to prevent accidental injury to the wearer from knives and other sharp instruments. They should also resist absorption of fluids such as blood, be able to withstand sterilizing temperatures, and avoid loose gathers or folds which catch on machinery or otherwise interfere with work.
Known protective gloves are made from a mass of interlocking metal rings, typically brass or stainless steel. Such meshes, and various methods of making them have been long known. See, for example, expired U.S. Pat. Nos. 948,615 and 1,028,904. Because the wearer's hand is considerably larger in circumference than his wrist, and also because the interlocking ring construction does not permit the mesh to expand, existing mesh gloves include a side opening or slit that extends from the wrist to near the base of the little finger. This side opening allows the glove to open and permits insertion of the user's hand. The glove is then held in place by a strap stitched to the end of the glove and buckled around the user's wrist.
This long-existing glove construction has several disadvantages. The principal disadvantage is that the side opening must be relatively long to permit the wearer's hand to be inserted, but a side opening is unsafe because it leaves a portion of the wearer's hand unprotected even when the glove is buckled in place.
To overcome this problem the protective glove of U.S. Pat. No. 4,471,495 utilizes a wide opening into which the user may stick a hand. A removable strap which is inserted into a cuff then gathers the extra mesh when it is tightened. This construction, however, also presents several problems. First, the removable strap is often not in the glove, thereby rendering the glove unusable. Second, the gathering of the mesh all around the hand, while not exposing the hand to any open areas in the glove, does provide excess material which is bunched and which is capable of catching on a foreign object or otherwise interfere with work when in use.